Presenter: Dr. Jill Brennan-Cook / Dr. Gillian Jackson / Deirdre Thornlow, PhD, RN, CPHQ, CNE
Dr. Jill Brennan-Cook is an Associate Clinical Professor in the pre-licensure and DNP program. She has more than 30 years of nursing experience including acute, critical care and emergency department experience. Before working at DUSON, Dr. Brennan-Cook served for 15 years as nursing faculty at Mount Saint Mary College, where she taught in the undergraduate and graduate nursing programs. She has expertise in nursing education and gerontology. Current clinical and research interests include improving care for vulnerable populations such as frail older adults. Her teaching interests are related to mentoring students and cultivating equity in the classroom and clinical setting.
Dr. Gillian Jackson is a Clinical Associate in the prelicensure program. Gillian has a background in cardiothoracic surgery inpatient nursing. She earned her DNP in Adult Gerontology Nurse Practitioner and MSN in Nursing Education at East Carolina University and her Bachelors of Science in Nursing at Norwich University in Vermont (where she is from originally). She is passionate about health promotion, the care of older adults, rural health, inclusive classrooms, and the advancement of the nursing profession.
Deirdre Thornlow, PhD, RN, CPHQ, CNE is an advanced practice nurse with over 30 years of experience in healthcare. She has held numerous leadership positions throughout her career, including Director of Quality Operations at The George Washington University Hospital and Gerontology Project Director for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). In her earlier research, she used large datasets to understand the relationship among hospital characteristics, patient safety practices, and patient outcomes, finding that hospitals that use fewer patient safety practices demonstrate higher rates for certain adverse events. Her work also focused on patient safety in hospitalized older adults, studying the concept of cascade iatrogenesis. Dr Thornlow’s work has been funded by the NINR and published in journals including Medical Care and International Journal of Nursing Studies. Dr. Thornlow currently serves as an Associate Professor at the Duke University School of Nursing where she teaches across academic programs, including the pre-licensure and doctoral programs.
